It has been one year since the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order became effective and both sides of the net neutrality controversy are heavily lobbying the issue.  For example, in a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal mocked those who predicted the loss of net neutrality would end the Internet as we know it.

This week marks a year since the Federal Communications Commission officially laid “net neutrality” to rest, ending the Obama Administration’s regulation of internet traffic. Miraculously, the free and open internet is still operating, making it easy to unearth all those doomsday forecasts that didn’t come true.

Remember prophecies of a web slowdown? “If we don’t save net neutrality, you’ll get the internet one word at a time,” the Senate Democrats’ official account tweeted. Instead broadband speeds have gotten faster—a good thing given how many millions of people recently were simultaneously streaming “Game of Thrones.”

Cooler heads suggested taking some perspective: The FCC didn’t adopt net neutrality until 2015, yet American web surfers had managed fine. The repeal didn’t revoke all oversight of internet providers but simply returned regulatory responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission.

The net neutrality hysteria began to subside after repeal took effect last June without incident. Still, Democrats continue to push legislation to reinstate the Obama-era rules. They’re calling their bill the “Save the Internet Act.” Save it from what?  (Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2019).

On the other hand, 103 consumer groups just sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader McConnell urging him to adopt the “Save the Internet Act, recently passed by the House of Representatives.  The Act would restore the net neutrality rules adopted by the Obama-era FCC in 2015 in total.  Moreover, they provided some examples they claim illustrate how ISPs have taken advantage of the absence of net neutrality.

Verizon slowed down the Santa Clara fire department’s data in the midst of one of the worst wildfires in California history;

The largest U.S. telecom companies were caught slowing streaming speeds to popular applications like YouTube and Netflix;   

Centurylink blocked internet access to force customers to view specific ads;  

AT&T gave preference to its own video services by not having its video data count against customers' monthly data caps; and

Sprint has been accused of interfering with Skype, which provides an alternative to wireless carriers’ voice, video, or messaging services.
Despite empty rhetoric by open internet opponents, the 2015 Open Internet Order did not harm broadband investment from 2015-2017, nor is broadband investment, deployment, or speed increasing since the FCC’s repeal. (Save the Internet Act Coalition Letter, June 11, 2019.).

Senator McConnell’s office responded to the letter by referencing his statement earlier this year that the Act was “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
However, there is no question that the Verizon slowdown of data used to fight California wildfires was egregious.  Moreover, the FCC’s failure to propagate rules to handle emergency situations such as the California wildfires may result in the DC Circuit Court deciding to remand or repeal at least part of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order sometime this summer.  
Conversely, even under the most stringent net neutrality rules ISPs would still be free to slow certain traffic as part of legitimate network management practices.  Thus, regardless of the rules, or lack thereof, disputes between ISPs and customers will still occur.  The trick is to establish adequate enforcement to minimize such disputes.
In truth, as we cleverly pointed out months before the Restoring Internet Freedom Order became effective, ISPs were unlikely to brazenly block, throttle or offer paid prioritization of traffic while the Order was being litigated.  

While some believe some ISPs will immediately take advantage of the lack of overarching rules to make deals to prioritize traffic.  The belief here is that most will tread carefully, fearing any backlash from a public sensitized to potential ISP abuses.

Of course, the Internet Freedom Order will be appealed to the DC Circuit Court by consumer groups, and that ruling will be appealed to the High Court.  In addition, many states will still try to implement their own net neutrality rules despite the FCC's warning that it would preempt such attempts.  That is likely to result in many more lawsuits.  (CCMI Blog, December 1, 2017).

As we have also pointed out many times, the only true solution to lasting Internet regulation is through a Congressional compromise.  So, while both sides of the net neutrality issue posture for publicity, they know that any court victory is pyrrhic, and we must get Congress to Act.